Nevermind the Bollocks, it's Gary Jarman

By Olivia Desianti

When I first started chatting with Gary, he warned me of his tendency to talk a lot of bollocks. Five minutes and several kangaroos later, we started talking.

About a year ago, The Cribs first turned up on the pages of NME wearing dirty shirts and torn jeans. Now a year and a new album later… well… they’re still wearing dirty shirts and even more torn jeans! However, this time they actually have 3 top 30 singles, and countless nonstop gigs under their belts. Heck, even guitarist/co-singer/one half of the Jarman twins, Ryan, made it into the NME Cool List for bleeding!

The Cribs are three brothers from the small town of Wakefield in Yorkshire, a province where all the new bands seem to come from lately. From the Kaiser Chiefs of Leeds to the Arctic Monkeys of Sheffield, it seems to be the new "in" thing to come from there.

Although The Cribs were one of the first bands to come out of Yorkshire, this new hype helped to pull them along even further. Gary (the other half of the twin, co-singer and guitarist) talked excitedly, “I’m really proud of all the bands [from Yorkshire]. This time last year, all the bands would drink together… It’s weird to see your friends doing so well and it’s kind of good. I think we’ve got a great community where people help each other out, so I’m glad about that. But now bands try to jump on the bandwagon.”

Technically, the band formed when they were nine, nine and five years old, just old enough to pick up instruments and bang them around. “We’d always listen to my mum’s records, like the Beatles.” As they grew older, their influences also grew, including their well known obsession with bands from K Records. “Not all of it, just some bands. I certainly admire the credentials they’ve managed to build… they’re so independent, yeah I definitely ascribe to that aspect. But there’s only a few of the bands I really like. Like Beat Happening.”

Fast forward to 2005 and The Cribs are having a ball of a time. Their sophomore album, The New Fellas, was graced with glowing reviews in Rolling Stone and Spin; as well as the single 'Hey Scensters,' achieving Q Magazine Tracks of The Year and the Best Song award in Leeds Independent Music Awards. They beat the Mercury Award Nominees and close friends, Kaiser Chiefs.

The Cribs have gained fans across the nation including the renowned Dior Homme’s fashion designer, Hedi Slimane, Hard-Fi’s Richard Archer and Art Brut’s Eddie Argos. “It’s cool being on an indie label and being able to [achieve so much]. There are a lot of indie bands in England now with major labels. It’s good we can stick to our stuff and do something like that. The new album, it did so well. It’s flattering! I didn’t know what to expect!”

Now, with that much success over the year, it’s pretty much taken that the Jarman brothers can afford a shirt or two, but every live photo of theirs seems to say otherwise – with them never seeming to change clothes, and drummer (and youngest Jarman), Ross repeatedly being spotted wearing sequined, glittery flashy tops. “…the fashion industry has become so infatuated by the music scene. We didn’t like that very much... There’s so many egos that are playing. It’s like being in the 80’s again! People are getting more concerned in the fashion side than the music. That’s the reason WHY [we wear those clothes],” claims Gary. “All these bands look so hip and so cool, and people just focus in on that. Ryan wears some really weird stuff. We got quite a lot of hype in the press. So we got all these cool dudes coming to check us out, to see what this hyped new band is like. They see these guys dressed very peculiar. And hopefully that will separate some of the wheat from the chaff."

With Ryan being in the spotlight for creating the trademark for The Cribs (bleeding from his mouth – there has been reports of complaints and tears shed when Ryan did not bleed during a gig) there has to be some sort of sibling rivalry. Everyone thinks [the bleeding] is a gimmick! No it’s not a gimmick!” laughs Gary. “The thing is, when you [first] called, [Ryan and I] were in the middle of a really big argument. We don’t normally,” Gary explains, “but no rivalry. He’s the kind of person who likes the attention. I like that because I’d rather be in the background a lot of the time anyway.”

One thing people brag on about when talking about The Cribs are their live shows, “We like things to be chaos really,” Gary remarks. With Ryan regularly bleeding from his mouth, constant crowd surfing and Ross playing his drums standing up AND backwards, it's safe to assume any show of theirs would be total chaos. What better way to spend the evening! Don’t miss their upcoming shows; these guys really know how to entertain!